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Monday, 3 June 2013

'SOLIDARITY FORCES POLICE APOLOGY'

“Pressure” and
“solidarity” causes Swazi police to apologize for march ban

“The Royal Swaziland Police have written a statement of
apology to the Swaziland Rural Women’s Assembly,” the Foundation for
Socio-Economic Justice (FSEJ) said in a statement, writes Kenworthy News Media.

According to FSEJ this apology has not “come natural” and
the excuse given, that “permission had been granted but there was a
communications breakdown,” was not likely to be true.

Instead, FSEJ said that the resolve of the Swaziland
Rural Women’s Assembly (SRWA) and “pressure exerted by international pressure
groups” had been the true reason for the apology.

“To us this is an example of the practical power of
solidarity, not only to this matter but for the broader struggle for democracy
in Swaziland.”

Last Wednesday Swazi police had banned a march arranged
by the SRWA intended to raise awareness about gender-based violence in general,
and more specifically to protest against a man punishing his girlfriend by
stripping her naked, cutting of some of her hair with a knife and injuring her
in the process, and parading her naked along a heavily trafficated road for 3
kilometres.

“The women made to walk naked for 3 kilometres by a man
carrying a knife still feels alone and her voice silenced. But this time it is
not because we were silent but because women who stood with her in solidarity
were not allowed to even speak on her behalf,” Swaziland Rural Women’s Assembly
said in a press release on Thursday.

Swazi women are legally subordinate to men. In Swazi
customary law, women in effect have the status of minors and cannot get a bank
loan without the consent of their husbands. Women can also be fined for wearing
trousers by traditional authorities.

Violence against women is widespread in Swaziland. One in
three females have “experienced some form of sexual violence as a child”, and
nearly two thirds of 18 to 24 years old women have “experienced some form of
sexual violence in their lifetime”, according to UNICEF.

Generally, there has been a steady rise in violence
against women in the past ten years.

Swaziland has signed the Convention on the Elimination of
all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and Swaziland’s Constitution
guarantees women the right to equal treatment with men – politically,
economically and socially.